Colin McRae DiRT

The most recent iteration in the Colin McRae Rally series. All the previous versions (I should mention that the second Windows game I had was the very first Colin McRae Rally) were 100% about rally - championships, careers ez. Colin McRae Rally 2.0 had a arcade mode which took a step aside from the main theme, but overall it stayed what it is - a rally simulator. But now it's a bit different...

Main ::

So DiRT is all about dirt. The main thing is the career mode which you basically have to use to get some diversity in cars once you want to play some rally events. Here you compete in races in order to get to the top and show everyone that you're the best (btw - this is being encouraged by a narrator who gradually introduces you to the game interface as you browse, no need to read the manual - just listen carefully).

The game looks just as astonishing in real life as it does in the screenshot above. Great graphics - detailed car models, reflections, bloom effects, shadows, reflections ... all you can think of. A perfect eye-candy. The requirements aren't too stiff and after a little tweaking even my machine got it rollin' pretty good.

The sound. Not much to say here. Everything blurs together very nicely and nothing stands out to be awful or awesome.

The UI is very user-friendly and is somewhat beautiful to use. Nothing customizable here, except the car controls.

One rather personal (and some would even say - unimportant) thing which made me smile was that when creating a driver profile, as in most rally/racing simulators, one must choose his/hers nationality. Usually for me it was UN or something similar, but now I see the latvian nationality right in front of me.

Some things I didn't like. Well, the car set-up. A straight example here - one can set the angle of the wheels, the stiffness of the dampers and many other particular things, but no steering sensitivity and other vital things. Detailed stuff is okay, but, please, don't take away things! Also, the car ... well, it's not like the old McRaes were - this one's like more stiff. That is not nice.

Conclusion ::

All in all it's a nice game and should keep me playing until the next release of CMR.
The game takes up a space of about 10GB, so content is HUGE and the variations are vast.

Good review overall, but a small note of criticism is that it's very lacking in detail. With the graphics part of the review, rather than listing all the features the game boasts, try talking about how they affect the experience like saying "The shadows react with the lighting as they would in real life, giving the player a more realistic experience."

With the sound area there is almost always something to say about it, talk about how atmospheric the music is or how out of place it is. You mentioned there's a narrator, add something about the voice acting talent, was it impressive or laughable?

About the UI, I appreciate that trying to write about a control system can be tough (I find the same), but try talking about how it can be customized to fit the player's own personal likes. And with the in-game UI talk about if it fits in or if it's just a nuisance.

When you criticize parts of a game try to not just think of your own opinion, but say why it would be a bad thing for other users. Or do a double-edged comment, for example: "The customization is very limited which could be a problem for players wanting to do more to their car, but it can also be a good thing for players who want a bit more of a pick up and play game."